FALL LA LA
“We’re going up to Big Bear to get a Christmas tree. Do you girls want to come?” Uncle Frank, with his perpetual twinkle in the eye, pitched my cousin Cat and I. Cat, short for Catalina, was my favorite cousin of all time - a remarkable feat considering I have twenty-seven cousins on my mothers side alone. Six years my senior, Cat, widely regarded as the black sheep of our sprawling family, was the kind of cousin who'd school you on life's unconventional lessons: “liquor before beer, you’re in the clear,” how to craft a joint that would make Snoop Dogg proud, and ways to sneak into nightclubs long before the age of twenty-one. She was a rule-breaker extraordinaire, and I adored her for it. Despite her "technically" bad influence status, Cat remained my unwavering comrade, my ride or die who held loyalty and affection in boundless reserve. If I were to, hypothetically speaking, commit a felony - let's say, for argument’s sake, murder - my sole and only call would be to Cat. She'd assist me in burying that body, no questions asked.
Whenever I locked horns with my mom, which was basically my teenage pastime, I'd dial Cat's number for an immediate rescue mission. This particular weekend in the winter of 1990 was no different. Cat had swooped in to liberate me from my teenage angst, and we were bunking at her parents' house - my Uncle Frank and Aunt Maria's place.
Uncle Frank, the elder statesman of a ten-sibling family tree, was my mom's benevolent older brother. Picture a laid-back dude with a penchant for crooning to the classics of the '50s, and you've got Uncle Frank in a nutshell. And let's not forget my chain-smoking Aunt Maria, his partner in crime and domestic bliss. Their humble abode in El Monte, California was like a cozy cocoon of tranquility amidst the chaos of life. While my own parents' marriage resembled a train wreck, Uncle Frank and Auntie Maria's setup was the stuff of suburban legend. He brought home the bacon, and she expertly sizzled it in the pan. As a kid from a broken home, their traditional dynamic felt like stumbling into a Norman Rockwell painting - a slice of utopia in an otherwise tumultuous world.
Our weekend had started without much of an agenda, mainly because our wallets were as empty as the Sahara. So, we gladly agreed to tag along with Uncle Frank and Aunt Maria to Big Bear. The spontaneity of it all tingled with excitement. Our families rarely splurged on vacations, and the idea of driving to Big Bear, with its snow-covered streets, towering pine trees, and a sprawling lake, felt like a mini get-away. Plus, scoring a Christmas tree there instead of the local Home Depot was the epitome of luxury! I could almost hear the theme song from The Jeffersons playing in the background - "Movin' on up!"
"We're leaving at the crack of dawn, so get your beauty sleep," Uncle Frank advised, giving Cat a stern look followed by a playful wink in my direction.
The next morning, bright and early, we set off on our Big Bear expedition. Along the way, we made a pit stop to scoop up Aunt Rachel and Uncle Tomás. My Aunt Rachel, a woman as sturdy as an oak tree, is sister to my mom and Uncle Frank. Her husband, my Uncle Tomás, could give George Costanza a run for his money in the neurotic department, but with a Latin twist and a fraction of the grumpiness. In our family, Rachel and Tomás were like our version of the Rockefellers - if the Rockefellers were Mexican immigrants who worked their butts off to climb the ladder of success. Aunt Rachel was the reigning queen of the local hair salon scene, while Uncle Tomás dabbled in the mystical world of small-time real estate. In actuality, they weren't swimming in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, but in our family, they were the closest thing to high rollers we had.
Before we crammed ourselves into the car, Uncle Tomás tossed a hefty duffel bag into the trunk, a foreshadowing of mysteries to come. With all passengers aboard, we embarked on the roughly two-and-a-half-hour journey to Big Bear Lake. The final hour involved navigating a treacherous mountain road, a path that would turn even the most resilient stomachs upside down. I hadn't given much thought to the logistics of the trip, a critical error given my unfortunate tendency to get car sick. The gravity of my predicament hit me like a freight train.
"Pull over! Adryana's gonna blow!” Cat yelled out to Uncle Frank.
"No, no. She's got this," Uncle Tomás countered, as he thrust a lemon into my hand and handed me a plastic grocery store bag. This man was a real-life MacGyver, armed with solutions for every conceivable crisis. I sucked that lemon dry, but it did precious little to quell the ferocious nausea gripping my body.
I was begging for a reprieve from the relentless twists and turns of the road, but there was no relief in sight. My aunts and uncles, all immigrants, were the masters of hardships. They didn’t feel sorry for me at all. They were like living encyclopedias of adversity, and sympathy for my predicament was nowhere to be found. To them, my life experiences appeared as soft as a marshmallow pillow. I had this sneaking suspicion that my Uncle Tomás might secretly relish my discomfort, believing it to be the cure for my alleged softness. "This will help toughen her up," I imagined him smirking.
After what felt like an eternity of vehicular torture, we finally conquered the summit of the mountain. Stepping out of the car, I resembled a slightly less horrifying version of the possessed girl from The Exorcist. My curly hair had mutated into a tangled lion's mane, and my skin sported a shade of green only attainable through genuine suffering. I consoled myself with the silver lining on the horizon, I was about to join my extended family in the quest for the perfect Christmas tree.
Christmas trees had always been a source of minor trauma in my life. Growing up with a single mother, who stood only a whopping 5 feet tall and weighed no more than 110 pounds soaking wet, the logistics of acquiring a Christmas tree were akin to scaling Mount Everest. Securing that tree to the roof of our car and hauling it in and out of the house was no small feat. I told myself this experience would be different. Christmas magic would soon be upon me. I was giddy with excitement.
We pulled into the Christmas tree lot, and I bounced out of the car like a tipsy toddler on her way to meet Santa Claus. The queasy feeling that had been churning my stomach earlier had miraculously vanished, replaced by a giant, toothy grin that practically reached my ears. Cat and I embarked on a leisurely stroll through the lot, my eyes feasting on the majestic Douglas firs, Noble Firs, flocked trees, big ones, small ones - all of them, in their glittering splendor, seemed like priceless works of art. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.
But here’s where the plot thickens. My aunts and uncles, who were clearly in cahoots, didn't share my enthusiasm for these arboreal wonders. I could only assume that the price tags dangling from the branches had something to do with their unimpressed demeanor. And then, like a scene out of a shady Christmas caper movie, I noticed a hushed conversation between my two uncles - a silent pact that sent shivers down my spine.
Uncle Tomás, always the instigator, finally broke the silence with his declaration: "Okay, let's go."
"Let's go?" I protested, incredulous. "But we haven't picked a tree yet!" I couldn't believe it; were they pranking me? Had I endured the treacherous car ride up here just to leave empty-handed? My protest cries fell on deaf ears as everyone shuffled back to the car.
As we piled back into the car, their diabolical plan was revealed. Forget about buying a Christmas tree, because these scoundrels had concocted a plan straight out of a slapstick heist movie - they were going to chop down a tree, legalities be damned. Their disclosure hit me like a pie to the face. Despite my lack of social standing, I've always prided myself on maintaining at least a semblance of decorum... and here I was, about to engage in arboreal delinquency. "Sweet mother of all that is lawful, we entered this country through the front door! What madness has possessed us?" I inwardly lamented. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Niño had morphed into suburban desperados, and I, unwittingly, had joined their posse. I didn't sign up for a life of woodland banditry when I agreed to this Big Bear escapade, but it appeared that fate had packed a curveball in my overnight bag. Little did I realize, the duffel bag Uncle Tomás flung into the trunk was a harbinger of the pandemonium awaiting us.
"Would you just look at those free trees?" Uncle Tomás exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with the mischievous delight of a raccoon raiding a trash can.
“No wonder he’s rich! He doesn’t pay for things!” I thought to myself, stunned by this revelation. I couldn't believe it. My dear Uncle, the man I once thought of as the epitome of upstanding citizenship, had just revealed himself as a freeloading fiend. Suddenly, my image of him shifted from a beacon of virtue to a penny-pinching bandit. It was like finding out your favorite childhood superhero secretly moonlights as a petty thief.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I was no stranger to criminal masterminds - my own father could swindle a swindler. But this man, my beloved uncle, had been bamboozling me for seventeen years! And now here we were, about to commit the most sacrilegious act of all: stealing a Christmas tree. The nausea returned as I spiraled into a whirlwind of disbelief.
As we cruised through the street at a snail's pace, I couldn't help but feel like we were on some clandestine mission, a gang of bumbling burglars in a comedy caper film. I half expected us to don ski masks and queue the Get Smart theme song.
Finally, we spotted our target: a majestic evergreen standing proudly in the forest, oblivious to its imminent abduction. I must have momentarily blacked out because the next thing I knew, my uncles were shuffling back to the car, each one clutching an end of our ill-gotten arboreal prize. They resembled a south-of-the-border rendition of Laurel and Hardy, and brought new meaning to the phrase, "immigrants, we get the job done."
The absurdity of the situation was almost too much to bear. Beneath the surface, however, lurked a deeper truth – the shame of succumbing to the allure of unlawful gains, even if it was just a festive fir. It was as if our genetic makeup came equipped with a built-in navigation system, programmed to veer toward trespassing at any given opportunity, consequences be damned. Did we possess no innate ability to exercise restraint in the face of illegal entry? Was “must cross illegally” etched into our very DNA?
Already, my mind raced ahead to the inevitable headlines that would adorn the next day newspapers: "The Grinchy Gang Strikes Again – Felons of Festivity Caught Red-Handed" splashed across the cover of the LA Times. And as for the New York Times? "Los Grinches That Stole Navidad!" would undoubtedly grace its front page. Oh, the indignity of it all!
My uncles performed a hasty tree-tying ritual, and with the Christmas tree precariously balanced on top of the car, we sped away, leaving the scene of the crime behind. In the dimly lit backseat, my teenage mind raced with paranoia. I couldn't shake the idea that we were being pursued by law enforcement, and my thoughts took a dark turn. "Do they handcuff minors?" I nervously wondered aloud. My ingenious plan was to milk my underage status for all it was worth, ready to throw everyone under the proverbial bus if necessary. "I was framed!" I would defiantly declare to the unsuspecting parole officer in my imaginary future.
Gradually, as we descended the mountain, my anxiety began to wane. I welcomed the return of my motion sickness, almost as if it were a soothing presence, offering a respite from the chaos. I was desperate for a break from the constant stress that had haunted this Christmas tree expedition. But as fate would have it, karma was lurking just around the corner, waiting to strike.
We were zooming down the freeway at a brisk sixty-five miles per hour when a distinct snapping sound pierced the air. There, in the rearview mirror, I witnessed a scene that left me torn between amazement and sheer dread: our ill-gotten Christmas tree, perched precariously upon the car's roof, embarked on a daring descent of its own, plummeting down the trunk and onto the freeway with reckless abandon. In their haste and excitement, my nitwit uncles had neglected to secure the tree properly, and now it had fallen in the midst of our high-speed highway odyssey. The goody-goody in me was tempted to scream out, “Crime never pays!”
In that split second, it became apparent that this tree harbored no fondness for the mafia of madness that was my family. Frankly, who could blame it? It had chosen freedom over forced festivity, and as it lay abandoned on the roadside, I couldn't help but admire its determination to escape our harebrained holiday caper. But my uncles, Sticky-Fingers-Sanchez and Pick-Pocket-Pedro, were nothing if not persistent. Can you believe it? They pulled over - on the freeway, mind you - and then these two numskulls risked life and limb to retrieve that damn tree. That tree was coming home with them even if it meant defying the Grim Reaper himself. And sure enough, home it came...
As my family embarked on their tree decorating extravaganza, I, the valiant outlier, opted for the sidelines. While they gleefully dove into the glittery chaos, I, in a display of unparalleled valor, retreated to my mother's side. Together, we braved the treacherous wilds of the Home Depot Christmas tree lot, a pilgrimage fraught with perilous encounters of timber twice our size. It was, I convinced myself, an act of penance for my part in the antics and my genetic predisposition towards government handouts. “Si se puede!”
As for my faithful sidekick Cat? Over the years, we had a plethora of wild adventures, big and small. Where chaos reigned supreme, she was my steadfast shield, a boozy guardian angel guiding me through life's labyrinth of potential pitfalls. With her at my side, disaster was but a distant specter, dodged with the finesse of a seasoned matador. Little did I know, she moonlighted as the family's resident scapegoat extraordinaire, a role she executed with the precision of a seasoned thespian. Our pièce de résistance? Behold, the legendary Great Big Bear Tree Heist of '90, a harebrained scheme conceived by the venerable elders of our familia, with Cat and I unwittingly dragged into the fray.
This is a great story! Much fun and, of course, well written.